'Yes, I really did get four guys on waivers this week, and hopefully next week I'll get four more.'

Hello all, and welcome to Weekly Moves, a column about the moves made by NHL teams that should appear here every Sunday night at least up until the trade deadline. Chase Warren, Josh Lile, and myself will be alternating writing the column each week, so if you hate one of us, 2/3rds of the time you're in luck! Normally the column will cover all waiver transactions, trades, recalls, relevant demotions, and signings (that affect the NHL team). However, given the sheer volume of moves made in the last week, I decided it's prudent to eliminate all waiver transactions that did not result in a player being claimed, as well as all 'recalls'. This column owes a large debt to Christina Kahrl's 'Transactions of the Week' at Baseball Prospectus, but I hope it can grow out of that potential shadow.

I'll be covering the Eastern Conference this week, Chase will have the Western Conference. Next week, Josh will take everything.

Some fans may end up hating Morgan Rielly (above), but it's not his fault.

There hasn't been a puck dropped or a skate laced for the NHL season yet, and yet some NHL fans are hopping mad about something. It's not the lockout, it's not a signing that their team made over the summer, it's not ticket prices.

It's Entry Level Contracts, or ELCs.

Any player who signs with the team he was drafted by signs an Entry Level Contract. Depending on a player's age, it may go for one, two, or three years - contracts signed when a player is between 18 and 21 are 3 years.

Most of the best players in the league were originally on ELCs. The great thing about entry level deals is that there's a yearly maximum a guy can be paid - as of 2011-12, a player could only receive a maximum salary of $925,000 per season. That's an enormous bargain when we consider that players like John Tavares and Tyler Seguin were on ELCs last year.

We're at Day Number Who Cares of the NHL Lockout, slowly being driven mad by the back and forth of negotiations.

Luckily for us chattering class types the NHL and NHLPA have been deciding to leak the focus of the talks, which apparently now is contract limits. The NHL proposed limiting contracts to seven years for players who re-sign with the same team and five years for free agents. In his last press conference, Bill Daly said that contract limits are 'the hill [the NHL] will die on' in this CBA negotiation.

Donald Fehr argued in a memo to players that contract limits would effectively create a two-tiered system like the NBA - top players would get a higher percentage of the salary cap, leaving fewer dollars for the rest of the roster. Why are both sides arguing over this so fervently?

Writing about CBA negotiations is tricky - by the time your article appears, the winds may have totally shifted. This article may indeed look ridiculous tomorrow.

However, we stand today on Thursday, December 6 with the owners and players in talks for the third straight day, and while conflicting reports come out about the state of each side, it's been made clear that both groups are incredibly close on most issues.

It feels like the home stretch.

Fans on Twitter are getting a little excited. Of course, fans on Twitter don't make up the bulk of the NHL-going public - those who tweet about hockey are the die-hards. The league could lock out for 3 years and we'd follow all the court machinactions with the same passion we watch the games. What's going to get your Gordie Schmo and Wendel Six-Pack back in front of the TV watching Hockey Night in Canada?